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© 2024 For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish
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The world of Yoga is wide and varied. In this podcast, yogi Nish the Fish shares the deeper dimensions of Yoga, Vedanta and Tantra, asking the big questions: why do we practice? What is meditation? What is the purpose of a human life? What is Beauty? What is Death? Nishanth Selvalingam studied various South Asian philosophies with his Shaivite grandfather in an ashram in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and moved to Los Angeles to study philosophy, teach yoga and play guitar in a rock band. Join him and special guests as they explore Yoga, in all its splendours. For more episodes and instruction, and to support this humble offering of the heart, visit me on Patreon: patreon.com/yogawithnish
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Today is Chinnamastā Jayanti and last week we had Bagalāmukhī Jayanti.Since both of these are fierce and very esoteric forms of Kālī, I thought I would take this occasion to discuss some of the "darker" aspects of our Tantrik heritage since both of these deities, as well as many of the other Daśamahāvidyās are associated with magical practices of um, let's say, a less than savory nature according to the views of some more right-leaning practitioners. And Bagalā Devī especially has a strong as...
The day that we gave this lecture was an exceedingly important day: Akshaya Tritiya! Because the sun and moon are in very exalted positions and because of the association of this day to a series of auspicious events in Puranic Hinduism (the day Mā Ganga came down into the earth from the heavens, the day Vyāsa began dictating the Mahābhārata to Ganesh, the day Yudishthira received his unlimited food bowl, the day that Parvati appeared as Annapurna to feed everyone among other things), today is...
Today is an exceedingly important day: Akshaya Tritiya! Because the sun and moon are in very exalted positions and because of the association of this day to a series of auspicious events in Puranic Hinduism (the day Mā Ganga came down into the earth from the heavens, the day Vyāsa began dictating the Mahābhārata to Ganesh, the day Yudishthira received his unlimited food bowl, the day that Parvati appeared as Annapurna to feed everyone among other things), today is typically regarded as a grea...
In this special satsangh, we host our mentor and dear friend Pujya Swami Bhajanananda Saraswati of the Kali Mandir, the foremost authority here on the West Coast and perhaps in the world on all things Kali, Tantra and Puja. Some years ago, I asked Pujya Swami Bhajanananda Saraswati at the Kali Mandir in Laguna a beach: “why is it that some people say worshipping Kālī is dangerous?” He said in his characteristic warmth and humor something to the effect of: “worshipping Kali is like mac an...
Today on this auspicious Friday (Fridays are very sacred to Tripura Devī) I'd like to offer you who are the embodiment of Devī these reflections on Lalitā and the Lalitā Sahasranāma. We gave this talk on a Friday on Lalitā Jayanti earlier this year as a sort of preamble before our Paramārthasāra lecture. May it inspire you to chant the thousand names of Beauty and Power Personified! Jai Tripura Devī Ki Jai! Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at...
On the auspicious occasion of Hanuman Jayanti today, we say a few words about Tapasvī Rāja from a Tantrik point of view. Since Hanuman, the Son of the Wind, is Prāna embodied, we say a few words about the Five Faced Hanuman with regards to the five types of prāna. Then, we talk about siddhis, yogic powers and how Hanuman embodies the proper use and place of siddhis in genuine spiritual life. Most of all, we discuss our ideal of Bhakti: devotion from a place of strength and fullness and not fr...
Why does God look like a lion riding woman with ten arms holding various weapons slaying a buffalo demon on the field of battle?Why does God look like a ash besmeared yogi on the tiger-skin mat telling his beads in the highest reaches of the Himālayas?Why does look like a flute playing mischievous boy who steals the hearts of cowherd-girls?Or does God "look" like anything at all?Some schools of Indian philosophy insist that God is formless and impersonal (Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism etc.) and o...
Chaitra Navaratri (the Spring Goddess Festival) is about to come up in only a few days! To usher in these coming 9 nights of the Goddess, I wanted to upload this throwback to the Fall Goddess Festival last year when we had a wonderful discussion on the intersection between art and spirituality, and specifically, on the role of aesthetics (poetry, music, dance, theatre, sculpture, visual art etc.) in the very refined and rich world of Tantrik spirituality. When I was cleaning out. my hard driv...
One of the central questions we ask in spiritual life is, "what about sexuality?" On one side of the spectrum you have world-negative traditions (which seem to be in the majority in classical times and whose effects can still be felt today) which reject sexuality wholesale and on the other side of that same spectrum you have world-affirming traditions that often get abused as a license for hedonism, mitigating greatly their spiritual value. This second type seems to be on the rise in tod...
We haven't missed a single Monday night satsangh since we started in 2020. That's a four year streak for our community? Isn't that wonderful? Thank you all for your continued support over the years! Anyway, we had a bit of a close call the other day since due to some circumstances, I was not able to start the lecture until 11:30pm that Monday night! Here is the late night "after hours" lecture that saved our streak:This talk was given on special day, a day that marks the anniversary of m...
On the occasion of Maha Shiva Ratri 2024, the great night of Shiva, we say a few words about the central mantra of Shaivism known as the Panchakshara. First, we explain the mystical significance of "akshara", phonemes (Sanskrit letters) and then we consider the esoteric significance of the number 5 in Shaivism, in a few different ways. Then, we put this all together to explain the hidden meaning of the Panchakshara mantra and conclude by commenting upon and ultimately rocking out to the Panch...
In this talk on the occasion of mahashivaratri 2024, we say a few words about the Tantra in general, the Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra in particular and Shiva puja in theory and practice. What do we do on shivaratri and why do we do it? We discuss the unique and wonderful features of Shiva Puja. May this be my offering to you, you who are Shiva embodied. OM Namah Shivayah!Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right...
Not only was it just Swami Vivekananda’s birthday weekend but also at the time of this lecture it was the anniversary of the composition of Abhinavagupta’s Bhairava Stava, one of my favorite non dual hymns of all time!As such we’ll celebrate by exploring Swamiji’s highest, edgiest most powerful non dual teachings and more importantly his advice on how to live them alongside a running commentary on the Bhairava Stava!Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and ...
As Buddha had a message for the East, so too did Swami Vivekananda have a message for the West, if not for the whole world. What was that message? While it is of course a very multifaceted, variegated and nuanced message, three core principles stand out; we explore them in the course of this lecture, as part of our Vivekananda Jayanti celebrations earlier this month. These principles are:1. Religion is a matter of Direct Experience, not dogma. Inspired by his teacher Ramakrishna who dail...
I have quite the treat for you: we’re going to be looking at Swami Vivekananda’s highest teachings from a series of lectures he gave in San Francisco. I thought of calling the talk “Swami Vivekananda in San Francisco”, to reference the series of three talks that Swami Ashokananda gave in 1946 and 1949 at the Old Temple and 1965 in the New Temple on the subject. I wanted to say a little about what kind of person the Swami especially while he was here in California and also reflect a bit on his...
Last week, we attempted to ask the question "Who is Sarada Devi?" and we ended up with the answer, "who knows?" Svārupam tvadīyam na vindanti devah! Even the Gods do not know your true nature, Mother! In any case, in that previous lecture (which you can watch here), we attempted a sketch of the early years of this great life and today, we're going to go in for a second pass at this most inscrutable and yet most intimately accessible of lives but this time we're going to pay particular attenti...
Who knows? Who could ever know? As Shankara put it in his Kalikāshtakam: "svarūpam tvadīyam na vindanti devah: not even the Gods know your true nature!"With this in mind, humbled and awed, we approach this profound mystery of the Divine Mother of the Universe who is at once inscrutable and yet easy of access to us. She is at once Kali, the Mistress of Maya who confounds the Universe as well as our very own Mother, appearing in the form of a very nondescript, traditional Brahmin housewife...
This discussion is a long time coming: Who is Mary of Magdala and what is she to the Christ? Is simply Christ's foremost and most advanced disciple? Is she fallen woman who was redeemed through the Christ as Pope Gregory claimed in the late 6th CE? Or was she much, much more? I want to make the case in this lecture for Mary as being the Shakti of Christ, the power by which the Incarnation and His holy Gospel was properly understood and spread, the power by which he is able to do what he does....
Today on Sārada Devī Jayanti, the auspicious emergence of Holy Mother, I'd like to offer this recitation of the four hymns of the Candi at your feet, you who are Mā embodied. Before each hymn is chanted in Sanskrit and translation, we make a few preliminary remarks about the hymn to contextualize it in the wider narrative of the Candi or Devi Māhātmyam. These hymns are very powerful. They are charged with unimaginable mantric force! To even listen to them is to affect a profound transfo...
As you know, a tantra is often divided into four parts:1. jñāna-pada, the philosophical transmission,2. Yoga-pada, the section of esoteric practices like meditation and mantra repetition3. Kriyā-pada, the manual for pūjā or ritualistic worship4. Cārya-pada, the section on how to live your life in the world as a practitioner!Having discussed the first three parts quite extensively it’s now time to turn the next question: “how do we move about in this world as a genuine spiritual aspirant?”How ...
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